All The Fintech - 12.18.17 - The future of payments is CryptoKitties?

Last week, I purchased my first Crypto Kitty. More specifically, I purchased a Crypto Kitty off CryptoKitties.co, which has created a game around breedable and collectible digital kitties whose identities are logged on the Ethereum blockchain. Since it’s launch almost a month ago, over 150,000+ kitties have been sold for $16.7MM worth of ether. On surface level, the demand (as well as my purchase) was completely irrational - the FAQ literally states “think breedable Beanie Babies” as a description. Nevertheless, I believe that CryptoKitties falls into a great example of the next potential big thing that starts out looking like a toy.

I initially attempted to purchase my cryptokitty in a web browser, but that required me to download a Chrome extension (Metamask), where I then had to create another ethereum wallet, transfer ETH to said wallet, and then transact. The experience was a bit clunky, which I chalked up to Metamask being relatively new and I thought about trying Brave which ships with Metamask built-in, but ended up downloading Toshi, which is built and supported by Coinbase.

Toshi is a combination of a mobile based messaging app, user controlled Ethereum wallet, and browser for decentralized applications (dapp for short). It’s open source with detailed documentation for anyone to build on the platform, and my experience was pretty seamless (for a crypto transaction). I just sent some ether from my Coinbase wallet to the Toshi wallet, chatted/opened up CryptoKitties, and started transacting in the marketplace for an adorable kitty all while I was in line for a plane.

The combined experience of transferring cryptocurrency seamlessly from one address to another, messaging a validated application, transacting, and then tracking my (kitty) assets all via mobile felt like the future. The experience hit on a ton of “disruptive” themes across fintech (mobile, social, messaging, real time payments, blockchain, blah blah). Crypto and blockchain transactions in general still have a huge UX/UI usability issue (just try setting up an offline wallet…) and platforms like Toshi have enormous potential for driving further adoption. TLDR: Still early stages for blockchain + payments and I literally bought a toy last week. But it’s not too far off the in the future where instead of purchasing a toy, I purchase a security, an insurance policy etc.

Side note: One aspect I’m ignoring is that technically CryptoKitties isn’t completely decentralized, but that’s for another time :).

For decades, Walmart has taken heat for how it treats its work force, including paying low wages and creating unpredictable schedules. Now, the giant retailer is trying to ease some of its workers’ financial strain, allowing them to receive wages before their next payday. Instead of waiting two weeks between paychecks, Walmart workers can now use an app to access a portion of wages for hours they have already worked.

Huge partnership for Even. Also I thought the quote that “Walmart executives said they learned about Even after reading a New York Times article about the firm a few years ago” to be interesting. I find that PR is still a valuable toolkit for fintech companies, partiuclarly for tier 1 media institutions (NYTimes, WSJ, etc) - go where your users go.

A who’s who of celebrities, investors and celebrity investors have come together to invest $47 million into Aspiration, the company launched by a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton to challenge the traditional banking industry…The core product for Aspiration is its Summit personal banking account. The checking account provides 1 percent interest and is fossil fuel free.

So far Aspiration has onboarded accounts with over $350MM in savings and $2BN per year transacted across the platform. As various fintech products begin to compete with each other, core brand proposition and alignment with consumers becomes increasingly important.

Given the crazy run cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether and litecoin have been on in the last week, it was only a matter of time before the Securities and Exchange Commission weighed in. Well, now it has in the form of an open letter from SEC Chairman Jay Clayton.

TLDR on the open letter: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Surprisingly level approach towards ICO’s from the SEC, sample questions for investors makes me suspect that the market can expect to see a set framework in the near future for evaluating ICOs.

Bitcoin futures got a muted reception after their debut on CME Group late on Sunday, with volumes in the tens of millions of dollars in the first 12 hours of trading, as warnings about the risks of bitcoin sounded ever louder.

Pretty modest launch on futures, TD Ameritrade’s also announced they would support Cboe’s bitcoin futures

Since its 2015 debut, digital evangelists have preached how the ethereum network will be perfect for applications such as managing supply chains and securities sales. What it’s actually used for is buying kittens. CryptoKitties, an online game that debuted on Nov.

I’m pleased to announce that David Marcus, Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook, will be joining Coinbase’s Board of Directors…Prior to Messenger, David was President of PayPal, where he led the payments company’s global expansion and product strategy

Coinbase making moves personnel wise after also hiring a former TD Ameritrade exec as their new COO.